DP Tool Club 17/CD_ASCQ_17_101194.iso/vrac/vampires.zip/THENIGHT.VMP

Internet Message Format | 1993-09-07 | 20KB

Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 3:11:05 CST
From: Thanatos <[e-mail]>
Subject: CONCEPT:  The Night

A few things first.  The general consensus is that NO ONE on the list
got any Mage playtest stuff.  Oh well, White Wolf's loss.  Kinda sad,
really.  I had some neat ideas.
        Second, just as I'm ready to discuss different Caine theories
the thread rears it's ugly head.  Yay!  Watch the Caine Files for more
info.
        Third.  The story prefacing the character I introduced is
INTENSE.  It describes a rape/near rape.  Anyone sqeamish/sensitive.
too young should just skip on down.  It's important, I think, to present
the character in the proper light.  I had a LOT of fun creating him, and
hope you like him.  Sure he's cartoonish, but he has _reason_ to be...
        Fourth.  First person to Email me with the proper answer as
to who this is modelled after wins a prize! (Now I gotta think up a
decent prize...).   Comments, criticisms, compliments are welcome.

The Night

     He watched her.  Crossing the street.  Stepping up on the
curb, her skirt rode up slightly.  It made his lips quiver.
     He pursued.  She carried herself well, a defiant stance.
Definitely self defense classes.  He liked the challenge.  A jangle
of keys.  She was carrying.  Mace.  Good, this ought to be fun.
     He hunted.  A few blocks.  He was just another invisible
person on the midnight streets, trying to get home before the
witching hour.  If only she noticed his footsteps falling into
rhythm with hers.
     An alley appeared.  He quickened his pace, ever so slightly.
The sound, the difference in sound...distracted her.  Time to strike.
     One hand grabbed her mouth, cupping away from wayward teeth.
The other looped around her waist and _pulled._  His body dragged
her struggling form into the alleyway.  The hunt was over.  The
feasting had begun.
     She was quick with the mace, he gave her that.  But women are
stupid creatures.  They hold the can _all_wrong._  Before she can
pop the nozzle, he grabs the bottom, clearly accessible, and
_pulls._  It pops right out of her hand.  On deft moment later, and
chemical irritants baptize her face in torment.
     She tries to scream, but he draws the knife.  He massages her
throat with it, and tells her.  No screams.  The knife doesn't
bite.  She doesn't scream.
     She's crying now, faintly sobbing, but whether it's from the
chemical burns, or from sheer mortal terror, he doesn't know.  He
doesn't care.
     He forces her to the ground, and pounces on her.  She
struggles, and the knife speaks, scratching her throat.  Not a lot.
Just enough so that she understands.
     He forces her legs open, letting the skirt ride up.  She wants
to scream, but can't.  The steel at her throat is gag enough.  No
pantyhose.  Good.
     She's talking, and he wants to thrust.  He listens.  This
might be good.
     "Who...who are you?  Why _ME?_"
     He laughs, and stares at her tormented face.  "Who knows,
bitch?  Who the fuck knows?"
     WHO KNOWS...
     An echo?  Caught on the non-existent wind, it seems to
reverberate throughout the causeway.  He stops.  She freezes.  It
was real.  It scares them both.
     WHO KNOWS...
     Again, not an echo.  More distinct, more impatient.
     WHAT EVIL...
     He bolts to his knees.  Something wrong...
     LURKS...IN THE HEARTS OF MEN...?
     A pause.  He glances about the alley.  No one.  For all the
privacy and darkness the alley offered it was relatively well lit.
A full moon illuminated the sky, dissipating shadow.  No hiding
places.
     THE _NIGHT_ KNOWS...
     And then a laugh.  Hideous and dreadful.  Meant for him and
him alone.  He pisses his pants.
     He stands up, ready to face his enemy, the enemy that isn't
there.
     "Where the f--"
     It is as if the wall had caved in on him.  He is sprawled back,
almost crushed by the force of the blow to his face.
     He is bleeding.  Bleeding and in pain.  And the guy isn't
_anywhere!_
     He readies his knife.  It doesn't matter.  A second strike,
just as concussive as the first, rocks his world.  The blow to the
back of the head makes him see stars.  This is gonna be over
_pretty_ damn soon.
     He turns to run.  An animal, almost trapped, darting for
freedom.  Unaware that the hunter, the _true_ hunter is
EVERYWHERE.
     A cannon, hand held, resounds through the night, and finds
its target in his delicate chest.  He watches in crimson glory as
his life explodes _OUT._  Again.  And again.
     And then it is over.  A form stands over him, holding an
ancient revolver.  It moves from the body to her, where she cowers
in fear.
     She tries to kick out, and it accepts it.  It needs to be
close.  It stares into her eyes with scarlet seduction and _TELLS_
her.  Tells her that it never happened.  None of this.  None of what
would happen.  It strokes her cheek, and she glances up, lost.  She
understands.
     It rises.  The sirens will come soon, bringing the paladins,
those too pure to understand its ways.  It smiles, and calls into
the air, "Take me, Mother Nox...transport me to your bosom!"
     And had she remembered, she would have seem it collapse on
himself, and tuck into a ball, as if to shrink to nothing.
     But it does not stop there.  It lunges up, fire in his eyes,
and ivory in his mouth, jagged bits too sharp.
     It leaps on the hunter, a jackal to the tiger that stood
before, and sips blood from the punchbowl sternum.  So much
blood.  The police would never know.
     And then it is gone.  Whether it ran or flew or just walked
away doesn't matter.
     She doesn't remember.
-----
Game Stats:
Name:  The Night
True Name:  Lemont Cranston
Sire:  Max Herald
Clan:  Malkavian
Nature:  Fanatic
Demeanor:  Caregiver
Generation:  11th
Embrace:  1989
Apparent Age:  20
Physical:  Strength 2  Dexterity 5 Stamina 4
Social:  Charisma 4 Manipulation 4 Appearance 2
Mental:  Perception 5 Intelligence 2 Wits 3
Talents:  Alertness 3 Athletics 3 Brawl 4 Dodge 4 Empathy 4
     Intimidation 2 Streetwise 2 Subterfuge 2 Leadership 3
Skills:  Drive 2 Firearms 4 Security 3 Stealth 4
Knowledge: Bureaucracy 1 Computer 2 Investigation 4 Law 4
     Science 3
Disciplines:  Auspex 2 Obfuscate 4 Dominate 3 Celerity 1
Background:  Mentor 4 Resources 4 Contacts 3 Generation 2
Virtues:  Conscience 4  Self-Control 3  Courage 5
Humanity: 6
Willpower: 8
Bloodpool:  12/1
Image: (True)  African American male, with brown eyes, 5'10" in
     height.  Thin and gangly.
     (Night)  6'4" Caucasian, with dark brown hair, horrible brown
eyes, a hooked nose.  Wears black fedora, black cape so bulky as to
obscure form, and red bandanna over half of nose and mouth.  Thus,
only visible part is eyes.

History:  You could say it was all his father's fault.
     Being born George Cranston was fairly average, but when your
favorite hero on the radio was the Night, infamous dark avenger,
whose secret identity was Lemont Cranston, it turned wheels in your
head.  Maybe you had a secret brother (who, of course, was white)
who, in reality, was none other than The Night!
     The Night was a Two Fisted vigilante that always saw justice
dome.  He learned a power at a Tibetan monastery that would allow
him to instataneously hypnotize people into believing he wasn't
there, an effective form of invisibility.  The Night could also
stare at you with his cold eyes, and discern all the evil you had
done in the past.  It was George's favorite stories.
     Stories for children.
     And then George Cranston grew up, but he never forgot.  He
kept his pulp thrillers and comics, and The Night memorabilia,
hoping to give them to his son.
     It would seem like it never was going to happen.  The doctor
said it might have been chemicals at the lab, but who really knew.
Finally, he was forty-five, she was forty.  And a miracle happened.
A boy.  A boy who meant so much to him, that there was but one name
to give it.  Lemont Cranston.  The Night.
     He indoctrinated his son, cutting his teeth on The Night's
latest exploits.  Lemont learned fast.  From the youngest age that
George could remember, Lemont wanted to be a District Attorney,
just like his namesake.
     And so nothing was too good for Lemont.  He was shipped off to
Northwestern University, in the suburbs north of Chicago, to become
a lawyer.
     But Lemont had a secret passion.  His love of pulp.  He wanted
to write "true crime" stories, even though they went out of style
decades before.  It didn't stop him from writing, though.
     He showed it to his "friends."  Kids who had grown up in the
Green, and made it out with a lot of hard work, and a little bit of
luck.  They laughed at him.  "Man, you don't know _crime!_"
     It was true.  He didn't.  But he was going to find out.
     A serial rapist was stalking the North Side, preying on old
ladies.  They had issued numerous descriptions that seemed to
indicate every Black youth was a suspect.  It didn't stop Lemont.
     He remembered the bar he hand his friends had gone to to shoot
pool and hang out.  There, he used his powers of deductive
reasoning and intuition, and spotted _him._  Make no mistake, he
was the one.
     Lemont found him, back at that pool hall, and followed him.
He exercised every bit of the training he had culled from the
numerous detective manuals he had studied, and shadowed the mark.
     And, oddly enough, the mark struck.
     Still unseen, Lemont watched as the attacker grabbed an old
lady, and dragged her into an alley.  Not expecting _this,_ Lemont
panicked.  But instead of running away, he ran _to._
     The especially heinous thing about this rapist was that he
found great pleasure in carving up his victim's faces with a wicked
knife he used.  When Lemont rushed the corner, that's what he saw:
a woman gasping, a fountain of blood for a face.  But no attacker.
     He struck.  First in the chest, Lemont's heart was severed in
twain.  He tried to fall, but the attacker kept inserting the blade
over and over into his gut.
     When he was done, the rapist turned back to his victim, and
began anew.  Lemont, life oozing from each gaping hole, watched the
whole horrible event from eyes that could not close.  Death, when
it came, was a relief.  His last memories were of the rapist,
finishing up, and kicking him in the head as he passed.
     And then a shadow fell over him...
     The rest is blurry.  He awoke in his secret base, beneath the
brownstone where he lived.  He was Lemont Cranston, but it was
Lemont Cranston, Dark Avenger, Servant of Mother Nox, the
Sheltering Goddess, a Tibetan deity he had discovered in one of his
many trips around the world.
     Something had happened.  His...death?...had somehow imbued him
with strange, mystical powers.  The power to cloud men's minds, the
power to search men's soul for evil intent.  But the mantle of this
power carried a heavy burden.  To be sacred to Nox, he must repulse
the sun.  But to Lemont, it did not matter.  He was a creature of
the night, a paladin of his Goddess, ready to defend the darkness
from those who would use it for evil.  He was The Night.
     When the deed was done, and the foe vanquished, whether by
cold fists or hot lead, Nox would tranport The Night into a plane
of ecstacy, for a job well done.  He would awaken a few minutes
later, blocks from where he started.  Mother Nox was so good.
     His armory consisted of a modified Thompson Submachine gun,
with the standard 88 round drum feed...with a few custom
modifications.  The inside was stripped down, and replaced with
modern fire technology, the bullets were replaced with hollow
tipped shells.  His two Colt revolvers were also modified to take
a heavier load, and support the dum dum cartridges.
     His cape was made of a fireproof weave, with kevlar strips
sewn in, for added protection.  If his powers did not work, or he
preferred to fight a foe head on, he could wildly furl and unfurl
the cloak, presenting a mass of cloth that made accurate targeting
difficult (+2 difficulty if this is his only action in a round).
     Finally, he had any number of high tech wonders, the most
useful being a powerful speaker hooked up to a voice activated
microphone on his lapel.  He can adhere the speaker to a wall, and
then make his voice seem to come from the opposite direction that
he usually is.  Vocal distortions are sufficient to make it truly
chilling to hear.
     His car is a wonder of "kit" technology.  A replica of the
1932 (whoops, need a cool 1932 car...), it has a superior engine,
with police band, cellular phone and computer built in, as well as
ceramic armor body panels, and shatterproof glass.  Top speed is
130 mph.  An ECM mounted on the front of the pod assures lack of
police involvement.
     Currently, The Night is hunting down the criminal scum that
ruined his life.  He longs for a time when he can put down the
mask, and return to the sun, but he knows he can't turn his back on
crime.

The Truth:  Ah, truth is a wonderful thing, no?  Max Herald was a
pulp _god_ in the late 20's-early 30's.  He created The Night, The
Sandman, and any number of Dark Avengers, and based their exploits
(mostly The Night) out of Chicago.  For some reason no one to this
day understands, a good part of the vampire population _liked_ Max.
Some said it was because he _understood_ the calling of the night,
and expressed it in ways lost to the Kindred.
     It was decided that before Max was allowed to age another
_day,_ he would be Embraced.  The idea did appeal to the writer,
and he readied himself.
     Now there was a problem.  At the time, vampiric immigration
was at an all time high.  The creation of neonates was highly
regulated; one simply could not _embrace_ another...forms had to be
filled out ad nauseam, and the final case would come before an
impartial judge.  In this case, the judge was Hugo, an odious
Tremere, who _definitely_ did not like Max Herald and his works.
He knew he could not refuse the petition, so he passed the buck.
To a Malkavian.
     Max's derangement was--interesting, to say the least.  He
appeared totally normal, except that he could no longer tell the
difference between reality and the fantasy he was constantly
thinking up.  Every moment became an adventure, as he tried to
decide whether the lupine roaring down on him was real or not.
     He grew tired, and slept often.  Each time he would awake, and
cause a revival in one of his characters, with him ghostwriting the
book.  This caused the bucks to flow in steadily.
     One day, a few years ago, as he awoke, an idea came to him.
He grabbed the phone book, and _looked._  He had been depressed
that perhaps all his work was for naught.  He wondered if someone
was _so_ loyal, that they would name a _child_ after one of his
characters.  He searched and searched and...found it.  Lemont
Cranston, no less!  His favorite character!  He set out to find
more information.  Max was more than pleased...
     Okay, so he was the wrong race, but nothing was wrong with
_that._  The kid was a Night fanatic.  Max read with great pleasure
Lemont's "True Crime" stories, and followed him wherever the boy
went.
     And then the night in the alley...
     Maybe Max could have done something to stop it, but it didn't
matter now.  Lemont was steeping in a pool of his own blood, and
the scene called out for pulp justice.
     Justifying that he would have done this anyway (waiting only
for Lemont to get a little more physically and mentally mature),
Max embraced Lemont, and took him to his haven.  There he
resculpted Lemont's memories to fit his new life.  Max used his
considerable resources to build all the items that existed only on
paper.  It took time, especially training Lemont in all his gifts,
without him knowing it, but he was ready
     Max released Lemont into the world, with strict orders to
avoid other Kindred (those with pale intent) at all cost.  This he
has done rather well.
     One problem is that Lemont does not know he is a vampire.  He
has built his fantasy world around The Night.  The way he feeds is
that after he kills a crimial, Mr. Brain shuts off, and Lemont goes
into a directed feeding frenzy over the corpse.  He will then run
off, and awaken blocks later, feeling like he was "transported"
there.
     How has Chicago reacted to The Night?  Only one person would
care, and that would be the Prince.  Such (relatively) open display
of power might be alarming, perhaps dangerous, but the benefits far
outweigh the risks.  Lemont targets only violent individuals for
death.  Those he leaves alive, he carefully wipes clean except for
the name _The Night!_ burning in their mind.  Lodin suppresses the
papers and the police, and the effect is dramatic.  Word of The
Night has stayed out of the media, causing a word of mouth rumor
mill, in both genteel company and the criminal underworld, one that
is easy to deny.  When people feel safe, more prey go out at night,
making the job of the vampire easier, and less risky.  The Night
is, in effect, making people feel safer about the night, whether
they know he's doing it or not.  And it appears to be working.
Violent (non-vampiric, of course) crime is vastly down in the areas
where The Night patrols.
     As for Max, he's as happy as ever.  For the first time in his
life, he's conquered his derangement, by making the fantasy into
reality.  And the effect is spreading.  A vigilante calling himself
the Sandman is operating in New York, where The Sandman once
prowled.  Of course, one could chalk this up to copycat
Malkavianism, but then again, where did the Sandman get an exact
replica of all the necessary equipment?  Max isn't talking.

     How his powers work:
     The ability to Cloud Men's Minds:  Sneaks in, using Obfuscate
2 (Who's gonna be looking for a black kid???) to set up speakers.
Turns on Obfuscate 3 to look like the Night.  Beats the crap out of
a foe with Obfuscate 4.  If pursued, turn a corner into a busy
street, and Obfuscate 3 into anybody.
     Can also use Dominate 3 to make victim's forget the memories
of their attack.  This can be both good and bad.  The hole in their
memory, as they wake up, surrounded by police, and a dead body a
few feet away, it pretty unnerving.  Most psychiatrists chalk it up
to post traumatic amnesia, and tell the police not to push it.  But
as more cases keep popping up...
     The ability to know Evil Intent:  Auspex 2, with -twinges- of
Auspex 4 (If Evil intent is strong, The Night can pick up a few
vibes about the nature, to confuse the wrongdoer (How does he
know?)

Note:  Against another vampire, or group of vampires, The Night is
meat.  He'll treat them like normal humans, or think that they're
fellow Children of Nox.  He's just mentally not ready for the big
leagues yet.

     "My brothers, you do not understand the severity of these
findings!  We were all so happy and content when the Malkavians
were an amusing bunch of slackers, but don't you see what has
happened?  From the chaos of their scrambled brains, they've pulled
out a _group_ psychoses!  For the first time in their tortured
existence, a pack of Malkavians are working toward a common goal,
not stymied by, but _defined_ by their madness!  This is our worst
fears realized.  I shudder to think what the future holds..."
                              -Elias Brachen, Sabbat Tremere Elder
--
I don't mind being the smartest  / Thanatos, DeathUrge, Master of Unknown
man in the world...I just wish it\ Time and Space [e-mail]
wasn't this one...               / It's a Zen thing...
           -Ozymandias           \       you wouldn't understand...